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Welcome to Youstice Blog!

We will use this space to share with you the latest developments on what we do at Youstice. We will also invite various experts to speak their mind about a number of topics, such as online dispute resolution, as well as the latest trends in issue management, e-commerce and technology, among others.

What has changed for online shoppers in 2016?

Online retail continues to be more and more essential to consumers' everyday life. According to E-Consultancy 2015 retail report, United Kingdom's online retail sales reached 52.25 billion GBP in 2015, a 16.2% increase vs. 2014 when the total amounted to £44.97bn. More and more online shops spring to life every day, while technology and software progress grows faster by a minute. What does this mean for online shoppers and how will it effect their shopping experience in 2016?

1. Smartphones and mobile devices lead the way

Shopping via mobile devices has been a popular trend during last decade. Mobiles offer immediacy, swiftness and less strenuous experience – and they are in our hands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. According to online shop Schuh,2015 was the year their mobile sales exceeded the sales made by either a desktop or a tablet. Steady trend of 50-55% of all online sales is expected to be made by mobile through entire 2016.

E-shops aren't unaware of this - numbers of mobile users have been rising for years. The layout of online shops have been customised for mobiles and tested for small screen use. 2016 will also be the year of express check-out and one-button purchases with all kinds of integrated payment gates. In short, customer is in luck - his shops are going to make themselves at home at the palm of his hand.

2. Same-day delivery as a part of customer loyalty package

Rise of the technology helped to speed up most of the distribution processes and dramatically changed consumer expectations. More and more e-shops offer free and express shipping just to make a better impression than their competition. For example, Amazon Prime Now lets members have a parcel delivered withing two hours of ordering for no additional cost.

30% of millennials say that same-day delivery is important when making an online purchasing decision. According to shopping experts at Connexity,"With more shoppers, especially millennials, now opting for shipping clubs such as Amazon Prime, consumers’ expectations are evolving and the demand for short delivery windows - at a cheap price - may become the norm."

3. E-shops adopt alternative dispute resolution as a part of their legal code

The number of low value and high volume shopping disputes between retailers and consumers has been growing ever since the dawn of e-Commerce. New technologies and developing Internet network have provided the rise of out-of-court solutions to settle these disputes that save time, money and resources. The front-runner of such solutions is the ODR - online dispute resolution - which allows to resolve a dispute through online channels instead of traditional court proceedings, which may take up to a few months – or even years in some cases.

Ongoing legislative change is bringing about a new era of legal settlements for e-shops – European Commission has passed the law, stating that every online shop operating at European market will provide an option for online dispute resolution on their website. This means consumers will have a much easier way to resolve their issues to their satisfaction, without having to wait for the court’s decision. The legislation came into full force since January 9, 2016 and ODR European platform for online dispute resolution will launch its operations mid-February 2016. Apart from the EU solution, there are multiple other platforms avaialble in Europe for retailers who would like to offer online dispute resolution – including Youstice.

About the author

Tomáš is Youstice's Relationship Manager. He has more than two years of experience of idea and product development for various start-ups and is expanding his business skills by running an e-shop Sklapni.sk.